News

That's what one mining company is saying. It claims a deposit in Marathon County could yield more than 100-million dollars in gold. Which sounds fine to Assemblyman Steve Doyle, who's been active in recent mining debates. Democrat Doyle wants the legislature to consider mining for a variety of minerals, to help bring income to the state. An iron-mining company halted plans for a Wisconsin site because of partisan bickering among lawmakers.

A U-W-La Crosse dorm will be used an an example of an 'unsprinklered residence hall' in a fire safety documentary scheduled for release this fall.

The January fire at Drake Hall will be one of the true stories featured in the movie called '9 Fires.' Makers of the documentary visited La Crosse in April to interview students who were displaced by the Drake fire for a full semester. The film will compare the fire at Drake to fires at college dorms equipped with sprinklers, where flames were extinguished quickly, and damage was minimal.

A new complaint against La Crosse county administrator Steve O' Malley.
O'Malley was cleared by the county's ethics board weeks ago after local tea
party activists complained about his campaign activities during the failed city
administrator referendum. The same group has filed a similar complaint now
with the state's Government Accountability Board. Greg Luce is with
the group. He says the ethics board didn't look deep enough into the
original complaint

Luce and the rest maintain O'Malley was illegally campaigning on county
time.

The Wisconsin Department of Revenue says Social Security numbers of thousands
of people who sold their homes in 2011 were inadvertently included on an annual
sales report that was publically available on the Internet for three months.
Stephanie Marquis of the department says internal procedures for posting reports
to prevent such security breaches were not followed.

Letters to everyone affected offering free credit monitoring for a year will
be sent soon.

Statewide applications for frac sand
mines.......over 100. For La Crosse County? Zero. County Planner, Nathan Sampson
says that may because the sand is not found in large quanities in the county or
maybe the strict zoning regulations. But he says it's not like they don't want
frac sand mining in the county.

Some communities have readily
welcomed frac sand mining for economic reasons. Others, including Buffalo, Dunn,
Eau Claire and Pepin counties and a handful of towns, slapped on temporary
moratoriums to give them time to review and update their land-use
regulations.

The goal is to help one company start a mine in Wisconsin...and apparently, that can only happen if Republicans regain control of the Wisconsin Senate in November.

That message comes from Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, suggesting Gogebic Mining won't get help in setting up shop in the state while Democrats run the Senate. Onalaska state rep Steve Doyle says it's a 'mistake' for WMC to suggest that it only wants to negotiate with one party.

Doyle says the political atmosphere in Madison remains 'toxic,' with both sides pointing fingers at each other. Gogebic cancelled plans for a Wisconsin mine this year, when a bill designed to help the company failed to pass in Madison.

Police in La Crosse have been concerned about the growing use of heroin within the city...

But the drug also is finding its way to rural areas. Five persons from the Galesville area now face charges of possessing or delivering heroin, following two separate drug busts on Friday. The La Crosse County sheriff's department was among the outside agencies brought in on the searches by Trempealeau County. At least two of the suspects have past drug arrests on their records. One of them, Joshua Wittenberg, arrested in the town of Gale search, was convicted last year for drug possession, and spent some time in jail.